The effects of internal migration on regional convergence: Evidence from Serbia

Abstract

The paper investigates the effects of internal migration flows on regional convergence in Serbia, a country with large regional disparities, during the period 2000–2018. For this purpose, we implement both the net and the gross (in- and out-) migration approaches. We undertake separate analyses for different categories of the migrant population to explore the impact of migrations involving different levels of human capital. The results show that internal migration flows between NUTS3 units in the observed period mainly fostered divergence, thus contradicting the neoclassical theory. This effect is especially pronounced when considering migrations of the active population and prime-age specialists.